


The Hellstrider Cycle: Diviner

by hellstrider



Series: The Hellstrider Cycle [1]
Category: La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
Genre: Based on the mythology of the Divine Comedy, Dark, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Gladiatorial battles, Gladiators, Hell, Italy, M/M, More tags to be added, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Gay Character, Original Story - Freeform, Rome - Freeform, The Devil is an Ok guy, The Divine Comedy, Victor is an overprotective dingbat, original book, these are my characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3315935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellstrider/pseuds/hellstrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2023, and a chosen few, the Diviners—men and women born with souls untainted by darkness—are the only ones standing between mankind and the escapees of Lucifer’s prison. Years earlier, when Dante Alighieri walked into the Inferno with the intention of cleansing his soul, he didn’t bargain on the extra set of powers that would come along with it. Dante emerged from Paradise with a weapon no man should ever hold and a soul more pure than any mortal had ever seen. </p><p>He was supposed to be the only one—a hero made in a desperate attempt to put a halt to an ancient prophecy that spoke of the End. But the line of Diviner blood does not end with Dante’s mysterious death. He was only the beginning, so many years before the birth of the most prolific Diviner to ever live—Dominic Artagnan, a man built of booze, glory, and gore. A man made to rule. A man made to save them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hellstrider Cycle: Diviner

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically an original story, but it's based on the Comedy, so here we go...
> 
> Currently Hellstrider is available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! Just search Hellstrider and it should come up.

 

 

> _Through me you pass into the city of woe:_
> 
> _Through me you pass into eternal pain:_  
>  Through me among the people lost for aye.  
>  Justice the founder of my fabric moved:  
>  To rear me was the task of power divine,  
>  Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.  
>  Before me things create were none, save things  
>  Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.  
>  All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
> 
> (The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri)

 

* * *

 

 

 

**PRELUDE**   
_Cinderella Man_

  
\---

_September 11th, 2013_   
_Field of Vacant Eyes, Hell_   
_8:23 AM_

  
\---

“These are Armani, you fucker!”

The Shade of Rasputin shrieks in reply, a sound like rusted metal on a chalkboard. A wrinkled hole spreads into a gaping maw, bile and ichor oozing down silver teeth the size of a grown man’s fingers.

A human roar answers, low and thundering with raw, unrefined bloodlust, and Dominic Ridley Artagnan launches all of his one-hundred and seventy-three pounds forwards. It’s a thoughtless attack,

graceless, and he knows it’s going to work against him. Even as he’s leaping with impossible agility from the dry grass beneath his boots, he regrets it.

Overhead, lightning cracks with a sound like breaking cartilage. Two forces meet over the dry, grey grass of Limbo and Dominic is sent hurtling back from a hit to his gut. If he were human, he’d’ve been

split in two from that kind of force.

The Shade is at least three times the size of a human man, with shoulders five feet wide and legs that bend in all the wrong ways. Its neck morphs into a tumorous approximation of a head, with beady

black eyes and that horrific mouth. Rasputin lets his teeth flash ominously and Dominic rolls up to his knees.

He forces himself up to his feet with a slack-jawed grunt and all he can hear is screaming between his ears, the pressure behind his eyes going bright silver as soon as it erupts. The opaque Light

encompassing his hands in the shape of massive talons flickers brighter, stronger, and Dominic glances down to the large, tattered hole in the right leg of his five-hundred dollar jeans.

The Sycophant drops low, splays out its massive, six-fingered hands and when it shrieks, a lolling tongue whips outwards and its veins swim beneath its plum-and-swamp-water skin, thicker than leather

and yet disgustingly opaque. Like algae swaying with the tide the muscles ripple beneath that webbed skin and Dominic is mildly grateful he hadn’t paused this morning to eat.

“You are one sick son of a bitch, Ras,” he pants. “C’mon, Mystic Man. Let’s do this. You or me. Let’s go!”

The screaming between his ears gets louder, going vaguely vengeful, and raw power claims his bones, feral and hot. The Shade drops low, and charges. Dominic juts out his chin, closes his eyes, and

spreads out his arms -

Stop.

Pause.

_**Rewind.** _

  
\---

 _Rome, Italy_  
 _Office of Victor Monahan, Watcher of Roman Coven_  
 _September 10th, 2013_  
\---

 

  
“I know what happened in 1927.”

Eyes like an electric storm across ice shoot upwards. They strike Dominic as fiercely as the lightning from a Spinner but he’s refused to back down from more. He puffs out his chest, however unimpressive

it might be, and the man across the black desk sighs.

“I know who came to you that night in London.” His spine tingles with anticipation and something that tastes like ecstasy and he smiles when he says, “I want to be sent to Hell.”

His Godfather is an untouchable effigy of stone but Dominic is well aware it’s all a ruse. He had to learn it from somewhere, after all.

“Hell doesn’t exist.”

“Bullshit,” Dominic snaps immediately. “That’s some Embassy level posturing, Vic, don’t shove that at me.”

Victor doesn’t show a single hint of his emotions. His face is hawkish, cut of strict lines and Victorian imperialism. But there is warmth hiding just under the veneer of ivory and diamond, he just has to dig.

The man steeples his nimble fingers over the thick leather tome he’s poring over and Dominic steels himself. He’s got Victor’s full attention, now; it’s time to push his case with what learned diplomacy he

has. The man is freezing over, ice crystals forming on granite. He doesn’t have much time.

“What,” begins Victor in his dripping, archaic drawl that makes Dominic think of espresso and thunder, “makes you think I am capable of doing such a thing? Short of killing you, of course. That would do

the trick nicely. A boy such as yourself must have a room reserved in the finest circle already. Right next to Nero.”

“Hah,” Dominic drawls. He stacks up his nerves and it might be underhanded, what comes next, but he never claimed to be honorable. He’s got a reputation to think of, for God’s sake.

He roots around in his back pocket for a tiny, finely bound leather journal no bigger than his palm. It’s a miracle it fit in his too-tight designer jeans.

He smacks the journal down on the desk, sending a loose sheaf of paper whiffing over Victor’s shoulder. His gaze immediately hones in on the journal, and Dominic doesn’t take much joy out of the way all

the blood drains out of his Godfather’s face.

“Just because I’m a delinquent and waste of Light doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

Dominic splays the journal open to the part he’s got marked by a gum wrapper. Across the desk, which made Victor appear so inhumanly untouchable at first, the other man has now degenerated to staring

at the journal like it’ll sprout talons and attempt to disembowel him. Dominic tries, and subsequently fails, to tamp down the wild triumph in his chest.

“Where did you get this?” Victor asks, English tenor dropping into a husky growl. “This –“

“Was with my dad’s archaeology stuff, yeah.” Victor visibly deflates and Dominic carries on nonchalantly, “With all his research about Diviners. Ludo’s cleaning house. I knew it was Diviner history that

brought you two together but wow, Vic, I had no idea dad started to write a book about your life. I was confused, when I read Ludo’s letter – why on earth is Vic so interesting, I asked myself.”

He’s rambling, he knows he is, but with his future wellbeing on the line, he thinks he can afford to ramble just a bit. Victor isn’t stopping him, so he plows on relentlessly, “and then I read this, and holy

fuck, Vic.”

He huffs a laugh, careful not to trace his father’s handwriting too much.

“Hell and back! I don’t think Ludo rightly knows what he’s given me. He’s responsible for an astoundingly large number of good things – giving me the Divine Comedy, my love of Batman. This.”

_God bless Ludovico._

_He’d been the fourth parent in Dominic’s world. A big, burly Italian man with a debt owed to Leonardo, his father, and a sense of loyalty that outshone the sun. The housekeeper was more than just that, he_

_knows now. Bodyguard, old assassin, mob boss – whatever. Dominic had always considered him a goddamn superhero._

_He remembers, on his seventh birthday, being wheeled into the library by his mother as Victor and father holed up in the study for a discussion Dominic desperately wanted to hear and yet wouldn’t have_

_understood._

_He remembers pouting in all his sickly, juvenile glory and Ludo, shuffling about dusting shelves and categorizing Mother’s new finds and Father’s ancient tomes, had laughed at him and dropped a heavy_

_book into his lap, without a care that it would bruise his fragile skin._

_“Divina Commedia,” he’d read out, confused. “Who’s Dante?”_

_Ludo’s lips curled into a quicksilver smirk underneath dagger-sharp eyes._

_“They say he was the first,” the old man replied, setting aside his stack of older books, covered in peeling leather and finger-smoothed shine. “The first Diviner. They say he was chosen, and Virgil was his_

_Resonant. Together, they would lead Lucifer’s soldiers in the fight against the Shadows that plagued humanity. Heroes, like the ones now.”_

_Ludo’s eyes twinkled, full of meaning that Dominic was too young to parse out but old enough to recognize._

_“Wow,” Dominic breathed. “The first Diviner?”_

_Ludo nodded sagely._

_“They say there hasn’t been a Diviner in his bloodline since, you know.”_

_“But he was the first,” Dominic said, incredulous. “If he was th’ first, wasn’t he real powerful? Wouldn’t there be more? Did he have kids? Did they have kids? Did they all die?”_

_Ludo chuckled, and some odd shadow passed across his wizened face. He ruffled Dominic’s wild hair, and said, “ah, uccellino – you ask too many questions for an old man! I can barely keep up with you.”_

_Ludo had barely been fifty, but Dominic decided he didn’t want to push it. There was an odd look on Ludo’s face, as Dominic clutched the battered copy with his tiny hands, like… Like the look mother_

_always got when Dominic did something spectacularly stupid, emphasis on spectacular. Ludo hummed, curiously, then plopped a kiss on Dominic’s forehead and went back to his sorting, leaving the boy_

_with the book._

_Dominic stared down at the old cover, wonder like a fluttering thing in his chest. His tiny fingers splayed across Dante’s name, and he hoped he wasn’t imagining the sudden tingle in his spine._

Dragging himself back to the present, Dominic tips his head nonchalantly in consideration as Victor sucks in a sharp breath. “I always wondered, when I was old enough to contemplate it,” Dominic carries

on, and he really thinks he should stop but he can’t, not when Victor is about to fray, and he knows he’s close. He can taste victory, a taunting smell like butter and he says, “I always wondered, how you

stayed sane after Anne died. Diviners who complete a Resonation go mad if they lose that Bond but you. You are here, arguably sane, because Lucifer made you a deal. You got to ditch the Rage in his own

playing field. I want that deal. I want a chance. I want a chance to prove I can do this on my own.”

Victor looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to a) eviscerate him or b) throw himself out the window. Or throw Dominic out the window.

Or both. Dominic’s heartbeat is kicking up; this is the final play, the showing of his cards, and if he doesn’t hit it right this topic will be firmly filed under ‘Things Dominic Isn’t To Mention Or He’s Going To

Die’. It’s a defense of Victor’s that’s even patented.

“I’m going to lose it,” he confesses in a low hum to Victor. “Wanna know why? Because I’ve chosen not to Resonate with another Diviner. Because I’ve chosen to be alone and I’m not allowed to do shit. I

can’t fight. The Diviner Advocacy Embassy won’t let me Hunt even if I’m the best damn Diviner they’ve ever seen, and you won’t let me touch anything over a Feral Shade – which, frankly is degrading - in

the Arena so let me do it. Let me prove myself, Vic. I swear to God, I can do this. You know I can do this.”

His chest is aching and his lungs are too swollen for his ribcage and Dominic doesn’t want to lie but he’s desperate.

“I’ll go insane. I swear, Vic, this is what I was made to do. Hunting Shades is what I was born for. Literally!” He throws his arms up. “I can do it alone, I promise you. Just. Let. Me. Try.”

He knows what’s holding Victor back; the fear of losing him is powerful. It comes off the man in waves of crimson. He’s lost everything; Dominic knows this – his parents as a child, his Resonant and wife,

Anne. Ninety something years after the fact haven’t dulled that pain. Then he lost Dominic’s parents – Leonardo and Moira Artagnan, in a blast of fire and heavy metal.

He’s built himself an empire now, but Dominic knows he’s his weak spot. He is Victor’s Achilles heel and it’s like a cloying stench that won’t leave his skin.

Parents, lover, friends, family. Victor’s lost it all and Dominic knows, logically, he’s the only thing Victor’s got left. Contrary to what Victor believes it only makes Dominic’s resolve all the fiercer, and if

Victor doesn’t hook him up with the Devil he’ll find a way, dammit.

He’s not good at taking no for an answer. Never has been.

“You are an Unbound Diviner,” Victor begins, finally, his tone all prim rational and ice and Dominic grinds his teeth until his jaw burns – “you are naïve and you are impulsive and you are highly untrained.

And too stubborn for your own damn good. Your Dweller is unaccustomed to battle – your formative wild years, of which I know little and wish very much to keep it that way, were not suitable training.

However convinced you are of your Dweller’s… expertise.”

Dominic catches his breath. Across the cradle of his skull, in the curve of his Atlas bone, he hears the gentle whirring purr of his Dweller.

Umbra, he calls it, calls her, has ever since the Shade woke, unfurled inside him when he was thirteen and a dusky purple haze had fogged his mind, soothed his fever. Dwellers don’t have genders but he

supposes it’s something like a pirate with his ship. And all ships are female. By law. So, therefore, so are all Dwellers.

It makes perfect sense.

Anyway – he shakes himself, snapping back to attention.

He gentles his Instinct now, his Rage and power, soothes it until Umbra is settled as a cool, dark pool in the cusp of his bones. At first, it’s slow pressure, building and building until the Dweller calms, and

cool relief rushes across Dominic’s skull, mint and winter mornings. Victor scrapes his stare down the exposed skin of his forearms and Dominic wonders if maybe he can smell it on him; the heat, the

desperation.

“Which,” begins the older Diviner, “perhaps…” He halts and Dominic frowns, focuses a little too long on the shadows beneath Victor’s eyes.

The archaic man scrapes up the journal and offers it to Dominic, who takes it and tucks it with a small struggle into the back pocket of his jeans.

“I will think on it,” Victor says, dismissal obvious in his tone. “I can say yes all I like, but in the end the choice is up to Him. I will think on it.”

It’s not a yes, but it’s far from a no. Dominic nods, curtly, then spins on one heel and marches right out of the office, purposefully leaving the door wide open behind him.

\---

He holes himself up in his room to avoid the other Diviners in the Sanctuary. There will be questions as to why their Watcher is storming around with a thunderous scowl and the ‘what’s Dominic done now’

frown on his lips.

And it really is normally his doing, he can admit that, and on any other occasion he doesn’t have an issue spilling details of their latest spat to Bones or Howler or anyone else who will listen. The reasons

have ranged from ‘Vic won’t let me get a puppy’ to ‘he confiscated my motorcycle for smoking in the kitchen’.

(Which, to be fair, only happened once.)

So Dominic sits in his room, alone, ignoring his mobile that buzzes with texts (all from Bones, bless her), chain smoking and reading The Divine Comedy for what has to be the thousandth time with Lana

Del Rey’s latest on full blast. It’s the picture of a sixties gentleman’s lounge, with Dominic lounging in a haze of smoke and Del Rey’s boozy tones sluicing through an old radio.

He’s shut the book to contemplate the sagging spine and pathetic cover when the door opens and through the haze of cigarette smoke and Lana’s crooning of innocence lost comes the lightning bolt glitter

of Victor’s gaze.

“You shouldn’t have that,” he says first, staring down Dominic’s copy of the Comedy like it’s personally offended his mother. “You know that.”

Dominic scrambles to stand, dropping his book and knocking over his coffee in one fell swoop. He crushes his cigarette out into the tray on his nightstand and Victor coughs pointedly, even though he’s

even worse with smoking, the hypocrite.

“Tomorrow morning,” he says, tonelessly, and Dominic’s heart soars. “Eight o-clock, sharp.”

The elder Diviner nears, and Dominic spots a shimmer of gold in the palm of his hand.

With a reverent murmur, he reaches out to touch the amulet Victor offers; an amulet so ancient it should be in a museum, an amulet so ancient that the entirety of the British Museum would give up the

Queen’s Crown Jewels just to breathe it in.

On the front of the pendant is carved a rose, with petals embedded with moonstone. A snake wraps around its stem, a thorn merging with a fang, and Dominic’s throat mirrors the reptile’s stiff coil.

“Passed from hand to hand through the centuries of our Order,” Victor says archaically, “do not bring it shame, my boy. Do not make me regret this.”

“No, sir,” he agrees, and the words come out sort of strangled in his excitement. The amulet settles beneath his V-necked tee, already warm, on his sternum. “Eight sharp. Got it.”

Victor levels him with a slightly warmer stare, and Dominic swears he can see a smirk pulling at his mouth.

“And don’t fucking smoke indoors.”

The older Diviner leaves and Dominic victory-punches the air.

He completely forgets about his Godfather’s orders and lights up another cigarette.

Bones, all yoga-gear and bottle-bright orange hair, walks into his room an hour later as he’s skittering around collecting his leather fighting gear.

“Dear God what the fuck?” she demands, and promptly shoves the window open, sticking her head outside.

\---

**_Rome, Italy_ **   
**_September 11th, 2013_ **   
**_Ridley Colosseum_ **   
**_7:56 AM_ **

\---

 

The air is crisp and tangy with the beginnings of the Italian autumn, too light in his lungs as he emerges into the vast circle of the Colesseum’s reconstructed arena.

It’s Victor’s pride and joy. Dominic still, to this day, remembers the exact feeling he’d gotten when he’d first set foot inside the grand amphitheater.

_He’d been nineteen, when he’d found Victor again. On the run from Covens and the Divine Advocacy Embassy for four years, living in the streets when he’d ended up in Rome, of all places._

_Because Fate, it seems, has a plan, and She’ll be damned if a willful asshole of a kid with abandonment issues fucks that up._

_“What have you been doing?” Dominic had asked; Victor grinned, wide and easy and feral._

_“How much do you know about gladiators, Dominic?” he’d countered._

_Dominic hadn’t had a chance to answer, because the lift they’d been in had opened, and sunlight blinded him._

_And he’d seen it._

_When his vision cleared, the air was shoved out of his lungs and every question had fled his brain. His heart had begun to pound gloriously in his chest, thudding in mad, mad excitement and something_

_close to hysterical disbelief._

_“Oh my God,” he’d breathed, wonderment thick on his tongue, as he took in the reconstructed glory of the Colosseum, pale stone shining in the autumn sunlight._

_He remembers feeling as if someone had turned back time and he’d landed right in the center of Rome’s glory days; the stands fully redone and sweeping proudly to the skies, crimson awnings drawn back_

_to let the light in._

_Bright oak panels covered the seats and there were newly printed banners hanging from the lip of the arena wall, alternating between the Italian flag and the Mandated Divine Advocacy Embassy banner; a_

_golden blade wrapped in twin snakes crowned in silver circlets of strength and power._

_The Emperor’s box was directly across from the lift. Inside it were three tiers of seats, cushioned in red velour._

_The seat he’d assumed was meant for Victor is the only one with mahogany wood arms, directly at the front, and beside that was a seat that had a microphone attached directly in front of it at the balcony’s_

_edge._

_A plasma screen was set into the stone at the front of the box, and Dominic spun like a top to take in the tiny, tiny cameras that dotted the arena wall, high up and out of the way, hidden amongst the_

_banners._

_“Vic.” Dominic whirled, suppressing the urge to take a lap around the massive arena edge. “You… How? Explain. Now.”_

_He’d laughed for the first time in years, giddy and shaking with excitement, and Victor chuckled low and deep and fuck, he’d missed that sound. He’d nearly broken with it, nearly thrown himself into_

_Victor’s arms because he’d missed his Godfather so much. So damn much. It was a hole the width of a canyon in his heart, slowly healing, and Umbra was writhing in glee with the sensation of pack and_

_love and family._

_“Welcome to the Colosseum,” the elder Diviner intoned smoothly. Then, his eyes had softened, and what he’d said next shattered Dominic so finely._

_“Or, more commonly known amongst the Roman people – the Ridley Arena.”_

_Dominic’s chest had done something incredibly funny then, and he’d forgotten what it was like to feel that much love._

_He couldn’t hold in anything and lost control, and he’d started laughing and crying and tears ran along the edge of his jaw and dropped like pearls to the sand. He rotated, drinking it all in. It was too much,_

_so much, and he thought his ribs might break with the effort of holding in his lungs._

_“Ridley Arena,” he repeats. His middle name. Victor had pulled him in then, and they’d stood, godfather and godson, in the magnificence of what would become Dominic’s entire world._

He’s still a little breathless whenever he sets foot inside the arena. It isn’t often, of course; hence his reason for being here now. He’s not allowed to fight, being a single Diviner without a Resonant to Bond

his human side to.

He knows that going to Hell won’t tamp his Rage; Victor’s deal was One Time Only and there’s a reason the imperious, hawk-faced man doesn’t do battle now.

But if he can prove himself, if he can show Victor he’s capable of managing the Rage on his own – and he is, thanks to a handy blend of Nightshade and heroin he’d discovered at seventeen – then he’ll be

named Gladiator and allowed to battle.

The awnings are still drawn to protect the sandy ground from the rain, and the shadows are heavy things settling on Dominic’s shoulders. He glances around for Victor and finds him, as per usual, up in the

Emperor’s box.

It’s then that it hits him; this is happening. His throat goes tight and his gut flip-flops the way it did when he’d first seen Howler and wow, this is happening. He grins and fiddles absently with the collar of

his leather jacket. Grey jeans and military boots complete the outfit, and he thinks, if he survives, he’ll finally be able to commission some real armor.

No, his mind stutters; not if. When he survives. When he survives, when he comes back, when he’s proven himself and proven that he’s far more than a runaway with abandonment issues and a heroin

problem.

The amulet seems to buzz against his chest and Dominic breathes in deep.

He glances ahead, to the center of the arena, where there’s a circle in shimmering Shade ash and monkshood made over the sand, meticulously laid Latin sigils marking his gate. The silver of the ash calls

softly to him, tempting, tender, and Dominic’s mouth waters. He recognizes the Devil’s name on one of the outer rings – Diabolus. Ostium, gate, sits beside it. God, it’s happening. Gooseflesh rises up his

arms in thick ripples.

Victor gestures for him to step inside the innermost circle, and Dominic’s veins swell with adrenaline, whipcord muscle going tight with anticipation and the thrill of an impending Hunt.

“He has prepared his battlefield for you,” Victor calls down, as there’s a minor scuffle behind him in the Emperor’s box and out peeks –

“Bones!” Dominic and Victor exclaim in unison; Victor in admonishment and Dominic in pure glee, and Bones, bless her, spectacularly ignores Victor’s piercing stare to lean over the edge of the box, long

orange hair cascading over her shoulders. Her nose is pink and her cheeks are flushed with excitement and Dominic’s heart swells, swells so rapidly he thinks it might pound right out of his chest. Her full

lips part in a grin, big eyes sparkling proudly.

“This is a closed training session,” Victor informs the girl, tone clipped. Bones snorts.

“Please,” she replies in her prim, Welsh tones of bluebirds and green apples, and Victor looks absolutely flabbergasted. “I found that little journal in Dom’s stuff yesterday night. I know already, Vicky. And

there’s no fucking way my Dominic is going into Hell without me here to pull him back out and take him for drinks afterwards.”

Jesus Christ, Dominic adores this girl. She’s barely toeing twenty and she can bulldoze Victor with a single flip of her hair and click of her tongue and she’s magnificent and fucking magical.

“We’ll go to that club you like, sweetie!” she calls down. “Find you a hot piece of ass to celebrate, this is so _exciting_!”

Dominic nearly swoons. He blows her kisses and Bones preens, nudging Victor over with a hip and settling herself right in his designated chair, draping her arms overt the sides like the Queen she is.

“You are the only perfect woman, dove,” Dominic calls up to her. Bones smugly tips her stare up to Victor.

“I’m stuck with him for _life_ ,” she tells the elder Diviner, who still looks as if he’s about to do his best impression of a teakettle, complete with steam coming out his ears and high-pitched screeching.

“She’s not gonna leave, Vic,” Dominic calls out and Victor covers his eyes with his hands. He’s got that face on, the one where he wonders how his life got to this point and Dominic beams. “Let’s get a move

on.”

Bones whistles and claps excitedly, and Victor heaves a great, put-upon sigh.

“Very well,” he growls.

“Oh don’t be so upset,” Bones is saying as Dominic draws a knife from a sheath at his thigh. “I even brought cards to play while we wait!”

Victor’s groan is palpable and Dominic chuckles, skeleton going shivery as blood wells in his palm. He lets it gather in his other hand and hears Bones’ little noise of disgust, before he opens his hands,

closes his eyes, and –

The blood drops to the Shade ash and on first contact it goes from crimson to silver and –

The lines of ash curdle and bubble like oil, boiling from metallic steel to blinding white in seconds and –

He hears Bones call out, “get ‘em, Hellstrider!” –

And the Light surges up, up, in hot tendrils, grasps his wrists, and Dominic falls.

 

\---

 

_It’s a hurricane in his brain, a rush of air, a fall that feels like it takes a thousand years and then-_   
_His eyes open, and life floods through him again._

 

\---

The fields of Hell are grey like death. The grass goes to his ankles and it’s brittle as dead twigs but as much as it bends it won’t break.

There’s no end to it. Dominic turns on his heel, takes in the churning clouds at the horizon at every angle, the sick yellow that hovers beyond the ash and charcoal, like the sky before a thunderstorm.

It’s the smell that really gets to him; the floral scent of Rome is replaced with brimstone and something he identifies as burnt garlic. The air is stagnant but there’s a wind he can’t feel that makes the grass

sigh, makes his skin crawl as much as it clings and seems to pull on it, as if he’s drawing countless spider webs away from his body.

A tempestuous cyclone rages above his head, soundless and ever flowing, a stream of that puce-yellow and every shade of grey imaginable. Oddly, there’s not a single hint of red anywhere; there’s no

spurts of flame, no cascades of magma that threaten to sweep his feet out from under him. It occurs to him this must be the fields of Limbo – magma came later on, deeper into the first circle. Right before

Purgatory, if he’s remembering correctly. And who is he kidding – of course he is.

The only break in the horrible dullness is a solitary figure standing not five yards from him, a figure that makes Umbra press down against his Atlas bone so hard a headache erupts behind his eyes and the

Dweller’s roar rips between his ears, feral and needy and furious.

The figure is clothed in priest robes stained with white powder and ash and God knows what and Dominic is pretty sure that there’s blood around the white cuffs peeking out from beneath the inky black

sleeves. Black hair that looks like it’s never been washed ever clings to the figure’s skull and even though all he can see is the back of the figure he’s about 98% sure it’s a man.

The bones of the hands are pointy and strain the papery, veiny skin, stained a livery yellow in splotches.

Dominic silently sooths Umbra, because if he loses control of his Dweller, he’ll end up gracelessly spurting Light everywhere and that won’t solve anybody’s problems.

He begins to creep towards the figure, inching across dusty grass, and in minute increments the man turns, and turns and –

Yeah, that definitely is not Lucifer.

No, Dominic realizes belatedly, with a stutter in his heartbeat and a dry click when he swallows; that is none other than Grigori Rasputin.

Grigori. Motherfucking. _Rasputin._

The Rasputin. The same Rasputin that took seven tries to kill. The same Rasputin that demolished the entire Romanov dynasty with his covert lies and holy mystic man bullshit and started a whole pop

culture era based around the lost princess Anastasia.

“What the fuck-“

His cheeks are too hollow, cheekbones threatening to slice through the thin membrane of his dead flesh, and his lips are tinged blue and Nightshade purple. His eyes are white, utterly white, jaundice

yellow settling where shadows should be. As history had claimed, Rasputin is huge, towering at least up to six eight. His shoulders are twice the width of Dominic’s and his hands could probably crush his

skull, even if they’re nearly purple with lack of blood.

Dominic whistles, soft and slow. “Man,” he begins, “Hell has not been kind to you, buddy.”

Rasputin’s head oscillates, reptilian and unnerving. Dominic locks his joints, sets fire beneath his heart as those bloodless lips part, sticky and slow, and –

The most unholy shriek he’s ever heard splits the too-still air, needling deep into Dominic’s chest, a barrage of contralto growling and too high, mosquito-noise levels of screams. There are a thousand

voices behind that scream, a hundred victims, and a century of suffering and then –

Umbra issues back a challenge, silver bleeds across Dominic’s vision, filmy and milky, giving Rasputin an odd, violet-silver glow and –

The flesh of Rasputin’s “zombie” begins to break, peeling apart like tar to rubber. It stretches with the sound of slop, muscles splitting and thin layers of skin flaying apart. Bones turn to dust, and what

emerges from the vacant shell is the thing that steals Dominic’s breath away. Seeing Rasputin was a lovely treat, really, but this.

This is what he came for.

“Darling,” he sighs.

They’ve had so many names in history; every language calls them something different.

Skia, in Greek. Skygge, in Norse; none of it matters. They all mean the same damn thing, the same thing Dante wrote about, the same thing priests fear, the things Diviners are born to fight, to protect the

innocent from. The same things that the Embassy calls ‘human darkness anomalies’ because Dante was a nutter and Hell doesn’t exist.

But they know better. Diviners know better. Dominic knows.

Shadows. Demons. Shades.

A darkness in a human soul; a darkness that became too much, that overwhelmed any goodness left, consumed the soul entirely, became black as ink, grotesque, bloodthirsty.

Dominic’s always thought it’s all very artistic and science-y, the gradations of the Shadows, the hierarchy that, quote ‘professionals’ have shoved Shades into, the study of behavior as if they’re some kind

of animal species.

It’s vaguely insulting to the ones who have to deal with them on a weekly basis. Sometimes daily, on a bad month.

Diviners and Embassy cronies all agree on one thing, though; Shades are only instinct. Rage, dominance, and feral desire. They aren’t a bloody species; they aren’t a goddamn nature documentary.

Shades of Devils, of Demons, of whatever they want to be called (personally, he doesn’t think they care) are the barest scrapings of the human soul, the bottom of the barrel.

They’re unholy, they’re evil, and this one – this one is the top dog of them all. Rasputin is what the ‘professionals’ call a Sycophant, the worst of the worst; the king of Shades, The Godfather of the demonic

mob. His soul’s form is massive and grossly unwieldy, gnarled muscle and withered, indigo-black skin that’s pulled too tight across whatever kind of skeleton lies beneath.

Veins of mercurial silver glint like ore underneath, concentrated at joints and around the pinched, puckered hole of its mouth. When the thing opens its maw and splits its elongated head nearly in two,

shark-like teeth drop from oozing black gums, dripping in puce-purple bile that burns the grass beneath its raptor-clawed, jointed feet, attached to legs that bend ways no extremity ever should.

God, it’s magnificent, he thinks. He hasn’t seen something this gorgeous, this grotesque, since that Ripper in Venice. He was seventeen and stupid, and no Diviners were around to save the day.

Dominic had almost died that day.

He might die now. It doesn’t matter. He could wake up one pleasant Sunday and crash his bike and even his superhuman healing wouldn’t be able to sew his insides back in. Or his head back on.

The Shade of Rasputin blossoms seven foot and Dominic is hugely unimpressed when it snaps and roars, all show, no action.

He cracks his neck and Umbra whines and he sings, “come on out, love,” and then.

Light sears through him, a fever down his legs, down the tight muscles of his arms and he locks into that power, believes in that spark, and –

“Let’s go, princess!” he shouts. “I ain’t got all fuckin’- holy shit!”

Dominic throws himself aside as the Sycophant surges forwards, turning the grass black in its wake. It moves fast for a thing of so much bulk, but luckily, Dominic moves faster. He rolls a few feet and

springs up, assessing and strategizing as swiftly as he can, and he thinks maybe he should have researched just a bit –

That train of thought is sliced in half when the Shade spins, bellows, and lopes towards him. Dominic huffs in exasperation.

“Game on, gorgeous,” he mutters.

He baits the thing and when it’s a hair’s breadth away he leaps again, rolls, springs up and dances around it, lashing out at one of those gnarled arms with a lightning-quick swipe. Umbra whips like a

rubber band against the tip of his spine and Light rockets from his palm, connecting with a bulging vein on the thing’s arm. The Sycophant shrieks as it bursts, sending bile and indigo blood spurting

everywhere and Dominic has the good sense to be completely, utterly grossed out.

He has some standards.

He spreads one hand and there’s a surge through his flesh, burning a tattoo under the surface, and Light spreads from the heel of his palm, caressing his skin as it heads for his fingertips.

Dominic wills it to shape itself, wills it to morph, and claws sprout outwards around his fingers, golden and opaque and deadly. If he’s going to have powers, he’s going to make them into something

awesome.

The Sycophant’s massive paw splits open, needles into talons and spikes and it swipes at Dominic’s legs. It’s a dance now, a give and take tango of blood and adrenaline and Rage and Dominic starts

laughing through his breaths.

He lands talons into the thing’s shoulder and it howls. Dominic understands the downside of his blow when he can’t fucking get his claws back out and the Shade slams a hand into his side, sending him

soaring several feet away, wrist snapping and breaking, brittle as glass.

He roars in pain and Umbra goes nonlinear; his vision hedges white, tunnels as he snaps his bones back into place and he’s healing even as claws of Light extend once again down his fingers.

The Sycophant drops low and in a blast of speed, rushes for him, tackling him off his feet and sending them both sprawling. Dominic slams his palm into the thing’s sternum and the indigo skin boils with

the contact of his Light, a shriek deafening him for all of five seconds. His concentration keeps slipping, claws flickering down to bulbs of Light in the palms of his hands. It’s all fine with him, really; as long

as he can use his powers, he’s fine.

His Armani wasn’t so fortunate. The jeans are ruined, torn from hip to knee, but his skin is sewing itself rapidly back together. This fucker’s been tossing him around like a puppet for too long and the

anger is building, white-hot, and Umbra is screaming and everything comes into sharp relief. Time becomes a nonlinear construct, something unbelievably mundane, as centuries and seconds slip by and

Dominic spreads out his arms and the Shade opens up in a burst of wild speed and –

Dominic springs away at the last moment, strikes the grass with a harsh roll and springs up into the air. He uses the Sycophant’s spine like some kind of gymnastic beam and digs his talons in at the last

minute, pulling himself down flush with its back.

He clamps the Sycophant’s torso with his knees and slashes into what he assumes is the thing’s bicep. The Sycophant bucks and shrieks and howls and scrapes through the leather of his jacket – which he’ll

know have to beg Victor to fix – and Dominic smells the copper of his own blood and hears Umbra screaming and feels the surge of his Light like ecstasy, like pleasure, and his claws begin to shudder and

die –

Dominic aims, prays, and makes a wild grab for the Sycophant’s throat.

And ends up elbow-deep in its mouth in his panic.

“Motherfucker!” Dominic bellows, and Holy Light detonates from his palm in a spattering of gold sparks. Rasputin squeals in a pitch he shouldn’t be able to hear and throws him, nearly five feet this time –

impressive – and the Sycophant’s talons are pulling at its jaw, hanging limp, as Light surges through, crimson beneath the black, pulsing through, fire beneath the shadow-flesh. Dominic watches,

entranced, as the Shade literally tears itself apart, trying to get at the ball of Light he apparently released inside, until, with an unearthly wail, Rasputin explodes, and paints the grass black.

One moment, he’s elbow-deep in Shade throat, and the next, he’s panting in the middle of a ring of slag, with Shade sludge dripping down his body and his wounds sewing together along his spine and –

His vision goes entirely black, as a soft hum of “well done, my boy,” rings in his ears, and Dominic flags to the grass as the amulet sears a brand across his heart.

\---

Blacking out twice in one day, well done, is the first lucid thought that runs through Dominic’s mind.

How did Bones get here, is his second. The softness of her yoga pants are pillowing his head, as those soft hands, smelling of rose petals and apples, card through his errant mahogany hair and stroke his

temples.

He pries his eyes open and immediately slaps a hand across them; “Jesus fuck that’s bright,” he moans, and above him, Bones laughs. The golden tips of her hair dust his brow and her lips ghost over the

bridge of his nose.

“Language, Hellstrider,” she admonishes fondly. “No – stay still. You just made it back, you’re gonna be weak for a little.”

“Bones,” he whines, more to say her name than anything else. “You promised me clubbing.”

Bones laughs, cinnamon and orange zest and Dominic bullies his arm to move, sneaking his fingers into the softness of her hair.

“Where’m I?” he asks, squirming a little, and it’s definitely not his bed. The surface is hard beneath his tailbone and pathetically cushioned everywhere else. “Oh.”

“The Hypogeum,” Bones confirms. “Victor didn’t want to move you far.”

“You mean couldn’t.”

“He’s not that weak.”

“He’s old.”

“He’s not old.”

“He’s like two hundred,” Dominic exclaims. “He’s an old fart and you deserve more.”

“Shh!” Bones hisses, and he can practically hear the blood rushing to her cheeks. Dominic chuckles and the door to the tiny resting room opens; sandalwood and raspberries fill the air. He peeks one eye

open, blearily focusing on the lithe, tight shape of Esperanza, Bones’ black-haired, golden skinned Resonant.

“How is he?” the other Diviner asks in her rolling Romanian tones that make Dominic think of peaches and emerald hillsides.

Dominic snorts. “I’m awake.”

Esperanza affixes him with a placid stare, steely-silver eyes highly unimpressed.

“And you’re notorious for lying about your physical wellbeing,” she retorts uninterestingly. Dominic sputters, affronted, and Bones shushes him soothingly.

“He’s fine,” she replies. “Is Victor on the way?”

“I am indeed.”

Esperanza steps aside fluidly, allowing Victor to enter the tiny white room. Dominic abruptly flails, and Bones exasperatedly helps him upright, glaring a little at Victor around the back of his head. Victor

ignores her spectacularly, and Dominic wonders how many rounds of Bullshit she made him play up in the Emperor’s box.

God, the man is lost on a nineteen year old; how is this his life?

“We’re impressed,” Victor says, with whiskey-warmth in his tone and a glimmer to his eyes. “Well done, Artagnan.”

Bones starts stroking his hair, and Dominic preens, heart calmer than it’s been in…

Well, forever.

“I told you,” Dominic murmurs sleepily, and he wonders if Bones has magic, because he’s suddenly exhausted and everything is warm and he’s so comfortable, so he lays back on Bones’ lap and she settles

in happily – “I’m awesome.”

Victor just chuckles, and reaches out, clasping Dominic’s shoulder.

He doesn’t let go.

Dominic falls asleep, and dreams of grey skies that were too familiar and a palace made of stalagmite.

\---

_The first time he dreams since the days of his childhood, it’s of home._

_The first time Dominic dreams, he sees the Artagnan estate as he left it, with its sweeping white pillars that hold the red-thatched roof, with it’s emerald ivy that crawls up the magnificent face and birches_

_that his father planted for his mother the day of Dominic’s birth._

_And in front of the steps, Dominic chokes on the sight of two marble headstones, shining dully in the face of the dimly glowing sun. Moira, one reads; Leonardo, the other. Dominic tears his burning eyes_

_from the headstones as a whirl of leaf-strewn wind kicks at his thighs, carrying with it the smell of lavender and blood._

_There is a woman in white on the balcony, face guarded by a veil of grey, but he can see the ends of her dark, dark hair, dancing on a wind he doesn’t feel about her narrow waist. In her hand is a white_

_rose, and a snake wraps itself around her throat._

_He steps across the gravel, doesn’t feel the harsh scrub of the sharply cut pebbles under his bare feet. He mounts the curved stairs and grips the door handle, but doesn’t feel the cool kiss of metal he was_

_expecting._

_Dominic pushes into the estate, and everything crumbles into ashes around him._

_The estate is in ruins around him, and above him stretches the endless tornado of Hell’s sky._

_Above, behind, beside him a Voice whispers, ‘you can never go back.’_

_A ribbon of moonlight erupts at his feet and Dominic knows._

_The only way now is forward._

_He breathes deep, and steps down from the rubble and onto the silver, shivering path, though it fades into darkness ahead. Fear grips at his chest, claws into him with greedy teeth, and the Voice says, ‘so_

_it is.’_

_Dominic closes his eyes, and everything fades._

_When he wakes, he remembers nothing._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first chapter of my original novel based on Dante's Divine Comedy! I hope you liked the first chapter. I'll be uploading on the first of each month from now on unless stated otherwise.
> 
> Please note this is an ORIGINAL WORK. All characters aside from Dante, Judas, Lucifer, Rasputin and various other biblical names are MINE. 
> 
> Much love!! xoxo


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